


Constellations

by worldinmymind



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Mutual Pining, and dine at the ritz, and gaze longingly at each other when they think no one is looking, excessive use of parantheses, self-indulgent nonsense, there's no real plot they're just in love and eventually realise the other one is too, they have a picknick, they're just two idiots who love each other, this is what happens when i have too much downtime in between lab work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-10 17:28:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19909492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worldinmymind/pseuds/worldinmymind
Summary: Alternative title: Two Idiots in Love Who Require the Apocalypse in Order to Confess Their Feelings (and Don’t Manage Even Then)They go on like this, both equally oblivious to the other’s feelings, stumbling through years of near misses, of nearly giving in and blurting it out. Moments of 'maybe he feels the same' followed by 'how could he possibly' and 'I can’t risk losing him, because if I did I think the world would stop spinning'. And so they don’t say anything.Crowley loves Aziraphale. Aziraphale loves Crowley. It just takes them a while to figure out how to tell each other.





	Constellations

Crowley has loved Aziraphale all along, probably. Since that first time they met, by the Garden, when the first rain fell. When Aziraphale had given away his God-given sword and lied to Her about it, all to protect the humans. Crowley had looked at Aziraphale, then, and felt an all too familiar swooping feeling in his stomach. The sensation of falling. But unlike that first, fateful time, this one was subtly different – coloured with exhilaration rather than fear.

No less fateful, though. At least in hindsight.

Crowley has loved Aziraphale since the beginning. It has changed and grown over the millennia, of course, but it has always been there. What started out as a small seed slowly and oh so carefully unfurled its first little leaf, and has since grown and grown and is now in full bloom. A small speck of dust that has expanded into a massive galaxy with millions of stars.

Aziraphale doesn’t know, because he is an angel and Crowley’s a demon, and angels can’t love demons. They are, after all, hereditary enemies. So Crowley doesn’t say anything and doesn’t try anything, but cherishes every moment they spend together, every fleeting touch and every stolen glance hidden behind dark glasses.

\---

Aziraphale loves Crowley, and he is not sure when it started. It came sneaking up on him so slowly and carefully and he cannot pinpoint when it began. He realised it in 1941, in the ruins of a church (and surely there is something ironic in that, with angels and demons and churches and falling bombs and destruction? Some sort of cosmic joke that he cannot quite figure out the punchline to). But with that realisation came also the knowledge that his feelings were not anything knew. They already existed, had nestled into his heart and slowly made their home there when he was not looking. It was only a matter of recognising them for what they were. Aziraphale realised he loved Crowley, and more than anything else he felt an overwhelming sense of _Oh. Of course. That is was it is_. Kind of how rediscovering an old book that you had forgot you read is like coming home to a place you did not know you were missing, but now that you are here it is so obvious and familiar, comforting and a little bit thrilling all at once.

Crowley does not know, of course, because Crowley is a demon and Aziraphale is an angel, and demons cannot love and even if they could, they definitely would not love an angel. So Aziraphale does not say anything and does not try anything, but he treasures every minute in Crowley’s company, every small smile that so few people get to see and every chance encounter that maybe is not as random as they like to pretend.

\---

They go on like this, both equally oblivious to the other’s feelings, stumbling through years of near misses, of nearly giving in and blurting it out. Moments of _maybe he feels the same_ followed by _how could he possibly_ and _I can’t risk losing him, because if I did I think the world would stop spinning_. And so they don’t say anything.

It’s late at night and they’re in the bookshop, and they are not quite as drunk as most people would be after almost three bottles of wine, but they’re definitely not sober and Crowley’s glasses are off, lying forgotten (although not really, but the wine-induced fuzziness allows them both to pretend) on a table. And their eyes meet and lock and then eventually Crowley looks away, but not before he thinks he can see something so indescribably tender in Aziraphale’s eyes, something that looks very much like love. But when he looks back over at the angel, he’s very much _not_ looking at Crowley, and the demon decides that it must have been nothing but his imagination, fuelled by six millennia of yearning and quite a lot of alcohol. He swallows and picks up his glass and downs what’s left in it, before opening the fourth bottle of the evening and throwing himself into a tirade on the first subject that crosses his mind. It turns out to be galaxies, for some reason.

(Because the stars are always on his mind. How could they not? He helped make them, after all.)

Specifically, he talks about how when two galaxies collide, there is so much empty space that most of the stars in them won’t actually hit anything, will just keep hurtling through the void of space unimpeded. _And isn’t that fascinating, angel?_ he asks. ( _Doesn’t that say something about us? Constantly moving toward each other, but always missing?_ he doesn’t say. Because if he does, the things he’s been so careful not to say might just slip out.)

\---

They are at the Ritz, where they had been informed upon arrival that a table had just (miraculously) become free due to a cancellation. Time is, quite literally, running out: there is two years and 27 days until Armageddon. Aziraphale has been counting, ever since the Antichrist arrived on Earth. He does not want to, but he cannot ignore the tally at the back of his mind, ticking off the years, the days, the minutes. It has been going for almost eight years, and still he has not managed to tell Crowley what he feels, cannot bring himself to get the words out. Because what if he does and he loses his best friend, the one being the in the whole of Creation that matters the most to him. The world might be almost over, but there is still some time left. And Aziraphale could never forgive himself if he did something to lose Crowley when there was still time they could spend together. ( _What is worse_ , he resolutely does not think, _telling him and losing him, or not saying anything before it is too late?_ He does not think this, because then he would be forced to answer, and he really does not know.)

They have dinner, and they do not talk about the Apocalypse. (If they do not acknowledge it, maybe it will go away? That may have never worked on anything thus far, but there is always a first time, right?) Instead, Aziraphale tells Crowley about some lovely first editions he had forgotten he owned and had stumbled across in the back room, and a customer who came in the other day and _would not leave_ until they had managed to buy a book, _and really, Crowley, you should spend more time in the shop, as a snake, so you could scare away the people who come in_ , and it is a joke, mostly. (Here is what is not a joke: _you should spend more time in the shop because whenever you are around, I breathe a little easier. You should spend more time in the shop, because whenever we are together, the world is a little brighter_. But how could he possibly say that?)

Aziraphale talks, skipping from topic to topic. He looks around the room as he talks; at the other patrons, at the table in front of them, out the window. And at Crowley, as much as he can without making it too obvious how completely _in love_ he is. And Crowley listens, and it seems like all his attention is focused on the angel, his whole body turned towards him (leaning forwards, as if he needs to be closer, as if he cannot quite help himself?). Aziraphale watches Crowley, and for a moment he thinks that he sees his own feelings reflected back in the way the demon holds himself. And he almost blurts out _I love you_ , right then and there. But he stops himself, takes a deep breath that he technically does not need, because surely, he is only imagining things because he wishes they were there.

\---

It is a week after the Apocalypse that didn’t. Almost a week since they successfully tricked both Heaven and Hell, and now neither party wants anything to do with them. A week of freedom, of not having to worry about the consequences of their actions towards each other.

And some things have changed between them, because of that. Some actions are a little more open, some words go a little less unsaid. But it is still tentative, stumbling, almost-but-not-quite-there-yet.

Crowley is reasonably sure, now, that Aziraphale loves him back. (Maybe. Probably.) He realised it there at the airbase, when the world was about to end and Aziraphale, holding a flaming sword, told him to _come up with something_. Because there was a confession of sorts, there. Aziraphale said " _… or I’ll never talk to you again",_ and it was the worst threat he could make. And in that, there is an acknowledgment of how important Crowley is to him, how important they are to each other. (It’s fitting, isn’t it? Crowley first falls in love with Aziraphale just after he gives away that sword, and realises the angel loves him back (probably) just after he gets it back.)

(The end of the world is, one might argue, the worst possible time to realise that the person you’ve been hopelessly in in love with for most of Creation might actually reciprocate those feelings. Then again, the chance of finally getting something you’ve been hoping is going to happen for the better part of six millennia might be just the motivation you need to try and make sure the world survives.)

(It works.)

So, for the last week Crowley has lived in hope, and no longer under the scrutiny of neither Up nor Downstairs. Now, there is only that small matter of maybe actually doing something about it.

Which, as it turns out, is a bit of a problem.

Perhaps he’s overthinking it.

(It’s very hard to stop overthinking, though, when it is all that you’ve been doing for thousands of years.)

The problem is that Crowley isn’t sure there are enough words (in any language he knows of, at least, and he knows more than most people) to properly express everything he feels. Because how can you contain all that in just a few syllables? It would be like trying to cram entire nebulas into a few grains of sand. The proportions just don’t match up. (He should know, he’s seen both up close.)

It is a week after the Apocalypse that wasn’t. An angel (more or less) and a demon (sort of) are sitting in a field in Oxfordshire. It is the middle of the night, and the sky is clear, and the stars are out (perhaps more of them visible than you would expect this close to civilisation, but the world has always been a little bit _more_ around these parts). They are sitting on a picknick blanket (memories of another night, in a car, with neon lights rather than starlight, keeps looping in the back of Crowley’s mind. _Have you caught up now?_ he wonders. _Or am I still too fast?_ ) and Crowley is pointing out constellations for Aziraphale, telling him about the stars that are part of them.

They have changed, the constellations, over time and between cultures and across the world. But the stars themselves are the same (mostly). _We are like the constellations,_ he almost says. _You and me, always being us, but in different configurations as time goes on_. Almost, but he can’t quite bring himself to. Not yet.

 _What are we now?_ he wants to ask.

_What does our constellation look like?_

\---

They are sitting on a blanket and Crowley is telling him about constellations. And Aziraphale listens, and maybe he looks at Crowley more than he looks at the stars being talked about (but it is dark, so who can tell, really).

Aziraphale loves listening to Crowley talk about the stars.

(Aziraphale loves listening to Crowley talk.)

(Aziraphale loves Crowley.)

There is really no reason to deny or hide it any longer. There is no one watching them. He just needs to say it. It should not be that hard.

(When did they get so close to each other?)

Crowley is saying something about how the stars have always been the same but the constellations they are in change.

 _Just like us_ , Aziraphale murmurs. Crowley falls silent, and it is first then that Aziraphale realises that he said it out loud. He turns his gaze down from the sky (where it had rested only briefly) and is met with yellow eyes looking back. (Crowley’s glasses are off, have been left in the Bentley. _It’s too dark to see properly_ , he’d say if someone had pointed it out. The truth is, however, that they have been off more often than not this last week.)

Crowley swallows, and his whole body turns toward Aziraphale.

 _Yes_ , Crowley agrees. It comes out as little more than a whisper.

The silence stretches between them, and neither averts their gaze. Aziraphale can see hope light up Crowley’s eyes, his whole face, a hope he can feel mirrored in himself. And then he cannot hold it back anymore.

 _You know_ , he says, _I think I’m caught up now_.

 _Thank you for waiting_ , he says.

They have, somehow, gotten even closer.

 _I’ll always wait for you, angel_.

Impossibly close, now.

Neither of them knows who makes that last move, who changes the distance between them from _close_ to _none_. And in the end, maybe it doesn’t matter.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote a thing!! :O Thank you for reading it! 
> 
> Come yell about Good Omens with me on [tumblr](https://worlds-in-my-mind.tumblr.com)


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